Bills for church hall soared after the energy giant read the wrong meter

British Gas has apologised after overcharging a church hall by nearly £10,000 – but only after The Telegraph's Your Money intervened on behalf of the infuriated church warden.

This is the latest in a long list of cases highlighted in these pages where bungling utility companies have failed to correct their errors despite enormous efforts and persistence on the part of out-of-pocket customers.

The church hall, connected to All Saints Church in Woking, Surrey, is used as a community centre and events venue. The monthly gas bill for the hall was set at £127, according to church warden Bernard Quigg.

But Britain’s biggest energy supplier increased the church hall’s monthly payments to £1,767 in December last year, after taking readings from the wrong meter. British Gas continued to take the hugely inflated payment for the next six months, despite frequent complaints and pictures of the actual meter reading.

“We are a simple organisation and dealing with this has not been easy,” said Mr Quigg, 72, a retired electrical engineer from Addlestone, near Woking, who has been church warden for two years. “To add insult to injury, we are unable to move to a cheaper supplier while this goes on.”

The church hall gas meter was exchanged in August 2012 and meter readings were taken from the wrong meter the following autumn. British Gas said an unusually large meter reading should be automatically checked, but since they had a shorter meter history this did not happen. Instead, the direct debits for the gas account were automatically increased as the system calculated that the church hall owed about £10,000.

Mr Quigg said: “Obviously once we noticed it, we were unhappy. We had a lot of telephone calls with British Gas.”

He said: “I formally read the meter on March 19 after being told if we sent them a picture of the meter they would accept it. It is clear their meter reading was wrong. But it was not acknowledged.”

Mr Quigg said he had sent photos of the meter to four different customer service staff at British Gas as well as posting a hard copy. He made a formal complaint to British Gas in March and took the matter to the energy ombudsman in May.

“I would say it has taken about 30 hours of my time,” said Mr Quigg. “It can take 30 minutes to get through to someone.

“As customers, I think we should expect regular meter readings. The system should be much more transparent, and they are failing customers on this point.”

After The Telegraph contacted British Gas, the supplier agreed to refund £9,733 to the account. The supplier has also agreed to pay £450 to Shelter, the charity, in recognition of the customer service failings and delays in fixing the problem.

A British Gas spokesman said: “We’re sorry for the difficulties that Mr Quigg and the church hall have experienced with their bills, and the time it’s taken to put it right. Unfortunately an incorrect meter reading caused their direct debit payments to increase, but we’ve now resolved the problem and sent a refund to them. We’re also reviewing Mr Quigg’s account to see if the church hall could save money on its energy tariff.”

The church hall’s gas payments have now been set at £180 a month.

Lewis Shand Smith, the chief ombudsman, said: “Last year we handled 26,760 energy complaints, 132pc more than the previous year, but our research tells us this is just the tip of the iceberg, with many more people failing to bring their complaints to us.

“If consumers have a problem with their energy company, the first place to go is to the company, but if eight weeks have passed without a resolution or a deadlock letter has been issued then they can bring their complaint to us. We are free to use and simple to access and at the end of the process you get a decision that is binding. No problem is too small to get sorted – you always have the right to redress.”

Research from Which? based on data released by the energy companies found that the six biggest energy suppliers in the UK received 1.7 million customer complaints in the first three months of 2014, up from 1.5 million in the same period last year.

Npower received 83 complaints for every 1,000 customers, the highest number, while Scottish Power received the fewest, at 13 for every 1,000 customers.

The number of complaints received by British Gas totalled 462,334 in the first three months of this year, up from 357,887 in the same period in 2013, joining E.On and SSE at about 30 complaints per 1,000 customers. The number of complaints have almost doubled since last September, when British Gas received 247,000 complaints.

Customers will be able to switch supplier in two and a half weeks by the end of the year, under new plans unveiled by the energy regulator, Ofgem. The proposals, due to come into force on December 31, will have switching times come down to three days plus a 14-day cooling-off period. The watchdog said next-day switching should be in place by 2018 at the latest.

The Ofgem chief executive, Dermot Nolan, said: “Consumers can change their bank in seven days, their mobile phone in just a couple, but have to wait significantly longer to switch their energy supplier.

“We hope this will give consumers more confidence to start shopping around.”

How to complain

All energy companies must have a complaints procedure, and any problems must first be sent through the supplier’s complaints service. Customers should be able to find information on the supplier’s website, including names and contact details of available sources of independent help.

• You can make a complaint by letter, telephone, online or by email using the contact details on your energy bills. Make sure you keep copies of anything sent in writing and make notes of any phone calls. The big six energy firms have eight weeks to resolve most complaints, while smaller suppliers have 12 weeks.

• If your supplier does not resolve your complaint satisfactorily, it must tell you this in writing in what is known as a letter of deadlock. Once you have this letter, or if eight weeks have passed, you can contact the energy ombudsman, which is a free service.

• Customers must submit their complaint to the ombudsman within nine months of their original complaint to the supplier, or within six months of receiving a letter of deadlock.